


Royal Knights

by CrazyClouds



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-19 09:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29624412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrazyClouds/pseuds/CrazyClouds
Summary: According to rumors, the Pale King has two children of unmatched beauty. One is a peerless warrior, said to have met countless gods on the battlefield and emerged victorious. The other is an unyielding guardian, capable of withstanding any hardship to protect the Kingdom of Hallownest. Even the Pale King's foresight could not have predicted this future.This work was inspired by Deroko's Royal Knights AU.Their Tumblr: https://deroko-sinnermode.tumblr.com/tagged/royal-knights-auOriginal work: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27796162
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	Royal Knights

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Deroko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deroko/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Royal Knights](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27796162) by [Deroko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deroko/pseuds/Deroko). 



The Pale King was not an explorer. He never set out into the wilderness with nothing but the clothes on his shell and what provisions he could fit in his bag, camping out in the uncivilised tunnels of Hallownest. He may have memorised the official maps of his kingdom, but reclusive as he was, he’d never actually gone out and seen most of the sights for himself. He’d left his adventurous days behind him, along with the decaying corpse of his original Wyrm form, and secluded himself in his Pale Palace, rarely leaving.

As such, there were many things the Pale King did not know of his land. Tunnels and passages that were not recorded on any maps, dens and nests of vicious creatures that killed all who trespassed, such that there were none alive who knew of their presence. The lair of Nosk, the treacherous mimic of Deepnest, was hidden from his light. The vile experiments of the Soul Sanctum were unknown to the one praised as all-knowing. The surface town of Dirtmouth had never occupied his thoughts in anything more than passing wonderance. And at the crown of Hallownest, far above Crystal Peak, was the statue of the Old Light, which the Pale King would surely have blown to smithereens- if only he knew it existed.

The Pale King, nowhere near as omniscient as his subjects believed, also did not know that there was more than one way to escape the Abyss.

* * *

The Vessel could not get the burning pale light out of its mind. So painful to those eyes born in darkness, yet so entrancing, enticing, calling it to ascend from the pit, heedless of the hundreds of its siblings that fell to their death around it. The dozens it itself sent tumbling back into the pitch black, thinking only of removing any obstacle in its climb. Others had similarly tried to bring it down, but this Vessel was stronger, battering them off the nearest ledge and continuing on its way.

Strong though it might have been, it was not the strongest. Not the fastest. By the time it had reached that metal bridge, hanging desperately onto the edge,  _ so close to the pale light it could almost reach out and touch it _ , another Vessel was already there. Before it stood the embodiment of the pale light, and it heard the words of the Pale King.

_ “You shall seal the blinding Light that plagues their dreams. You are the Vessel. You are the Hollow Knight.” _

The Pale King turned and left, followed by the Hollow Knight, who glanced back at the struggling Vessel. For a moment, their dark eyes met, and though it was designed to be without emotion, the Hollow Knight felt some measure of pity for its struggling sibling- not that it knew what the slight pain in its empty heart meant. However, the Hollow Knight was more compelled to follow the pale light of its sire, which was getting further and further away the longer it dallied, so it turned its back on its sibling. The first of its kind to ever escape the Abyss.

It would not be the last.

The great doors slammed shut, sealed by the King’s Brand, forever locked, and the Vessel fell down, down, down, back into the place of its birth, the graveyard of its less fortunate siblings. Resigned to its fate, the Vessel went limp, understanding without understanding that only death remained. It simply waited for the moment when its shell cracked open on the corpse-covered ground, to become yet another in a sea of broken masks. It was not expecting to be caught on the way down.

Hundreds of eggs, thousands of grubs had been sacrificed to the Void by the Pale King in his now-finished search for the Hollow Knight. He thought them truly empty, unable to feel emotion, to think for themselves, little more than automatons. Not alive, just the reanimated corpses of his children, puppeted by Void.

What a fool he was. The Vessels were the progeny of the Pale King and White Lady, beings of Mind and Life. Powerful though the Void was, even it could not devour the godlings without their eggs being dropped directly into the Void Sea. Instead, by exposing the eggs to the miasma of the Abyss, the darkness had seeped into them, mixing with- not consuming- what was inside, creating a unique species.

Shells of hardened Void, masks of solidified Soul, organs of twisted Root, and brains of shaped Mind; the Vessels were an amalgamation of the four mystic elements. They were alive, they could feel and think, even if they did not know what emotions or thought were. Young as they were, the Vessels were driven purely by instinct. And that instinct told them to follow the pale light, for it would lead them to their father, who would pull them free of the darkness. Instead, they were cast down to their deaths, by their siblings or by their own missteps.

Root and Soul gave physical form. Mind gave mental form. The Void, alongside physical form, also gave the Vessels  _ spiritual  _ form. From the thousands of broken masks rose a legion of Shades, pitch black ghosts with Soul-white eyes.

The Shades would not let the last living Vessel in the Abyss join their ranks. Hundreds of them flew together, melding into a floating blob of Void, and the final Vessel dropped into the undulating mass. It bounced once, then lay there, dazed.

The combined Shades lowered the Vessel onto the shell-covered floor, dispersing back into their singular forms and crowding around it. They nuzzled against the sole living creature, ghostly black masks somehow making contact. The Vessel was jostled upright, standing on stubby legs. It stared blankly at its dead siblings, mind far gone, still entranced by the glimpse of the Pale King.

It had to get to him. There had to be another way out of the Abyss, another way to reach that pale light, even if it would not reach for them.

* * *

Time meant nothing in the Void. The Vessel searched and searched, enlisting the help of the Shades, and would have kept looking for eternity if it had to. Along the way, they found many strange things.

Through a tunnel, there was a towering structure, which bathed the Void Sea in yellow light, quelling the bottomless depths. A corpse lay in the top, of a creature unlike any of the siblings. It didn’t do anything other than lay there, obviously, so the siblings quickly lost interest in it.

Halfway up the pit was a dais with a glowing blue rock in it- a locking mechanism for the door beyond it, most likely. It couldn’t be opened, just like the door sealed by the King’s Brand. The siblings moved on.

Far beyond the lighthouse, across the Void Sea and through a stretching tunnel, was a fountain of overflowing Void. The Vessel, curious, jumped in, and attained the ability to warp into a Shade for a moment, passing through all obstacles before reverting back to its original form. It thoroughly startled both the Vessel and its siblings the first time it happened.

On the opposite side of the Abyss was a chamber filled with stone faces, mouths wide open, as if they were screaming. Overcome by an otherworldly voice, an Abyssal Shriek ripped out of the Vessel’s throat, sending a cacophony of Soul and Void into the air, shaped like the wailing visages surrounding it. It shouldn’t have been possible- the Vessels did not have vocal chords. They were not designed to have them. But, such was the arcane nature of Soul (or magic, as many ignorant bugs would call it).

It was in that same room that the Vessel found what it had been looking for. The force of the Abyssal Shriek shook the stone chamber, making dust fall from the ceiling in a heavy cloud. After it cleared, the Vessel noticed a portion of the wall was littered in cracks. Another Abyssal Shriek (and subsequent dust tornado), this time closer, completely shattered the weakened section of fossil stone, revealing a tunnel behind it.

Excited, the Vessel rushed in headfirst. Currently, there were only two Shades with the living Vessel, the others scattered about the rest of the Abyss, searching for alternative avenues of escape. The two ghostly siblings glanced at each other, coming to a decision. One followed the Vessel down the tunnel, while the second returned to the Abyss proper, to inform their siblings of their new discovery.

How unfortunate, then, that not soon after, the weakened foundations of the room collapsed, once more sealing the Abyss off from the rest of the world.

* * *


End file.
